Social networking systems commonly provide mechanisms allowing users to interact within their social networks. A social networking system user may be an individual or any other entity, such as a business or other non-person entity. A variety of relationships can be tracked within a social networking system, including connections amongst the users and social objects within the social networking system, such as between a user to another user, between a user to a social object, and between a social object to another social object. A social object may be, for example, one or more of a social networking system user, a non-person entity, a content item, a group, a social networking system page, an event, a message, a subject (such as persons, places, things, abstract ideas or concepts), a multimedia, or any combination thereof.
Social networking system information that is tracked and maintained by a social networking system may be stored as a social graph, which includes a plurality of nodes that are interconnected by a plurality of edges. A social graph node may represent a social networking system object that can act on and/or be acted upon by another node. Each of these interactions can be stored as an edge of the social graph. In some embodiments, the edges can be represented as bi-directional. In other embodiments, the edges can be represented as directional. For example, a user node checking into a social network page for a place, can be represented by either a bi-directional edge between the user node and the social network page or a directional edge from the user node to the social network page. The social graph can thus be stored as a database of edges between nodes. In some embodiments, the social graph can be stored separately for user interactions of a specific kind. In other embodiments, the social networking system stores the social graph without discriminating the type of user interactions.
An edge between nodes in a social graph represents a particular kind of connection between the nodes, which may result from an action that was performed by one of the nodes on the other node. Examples of such actions by a social networking system user include listing social networking system objects in a user profile, subscribing to or joining a social networking system group or fan page, sending a message to another social networking system user, making a purchase associated with a social networking system node, commenting on a content item, or reserving (RSVP) to an event.
One category of an edge in the social network is a page connection. The page connection is a connection between a user account and a social networking system page. The social networking system page is a portal for an entity to interact with the social networking system users. The social networking system page can represent an entity, a brand, an individual, a business, a group, an organization, or any combination of. The page connection can be used in advertisement, news feed, data collection, and a variety of other tasks.
The page connections made with traditional systems often represent an explicit approval for the connection from a social networking system user to the social networking system page. For example, a page connection is made when a social networking system user clicks on a “like” button of the social networking system page. This type of connection making may limit the richness of information connectivity with the social networking system.